Rising tide: Check whether your area will be impacted by surging sea levels

Rising tide: Check whether your area will be impacted by surging sea levels

Some flooding adjacent to the River Lee at the Lee Fields, Cork, earlier this year. Photo: Denis Minihane

Ireland is already seeing the effects of climate change. 

A new joint report from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Met Éireann (MÉ) and the Marine Institute (MI) has found that global warming has resulted in Ireland’s climate becoming warmer and wetter, with 15 of the top 20 warmest years on record occurring since 1990.

The decade between 2006 to 2015 was the wettest on record.

The report, like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report published earlier this week, found that that sea levels are rising at a startling pace, along with increased ocean temperatures and acidity.

With a large proportion of the Irish population living close to the coast, rising sea levels have the potential to completely reshape the country over the coming decades. 

To illustrate just how serious these changes would be, Coastal Climate Central, an independent non-profit group of scientists and communicators who research our changing climate and how it affects people’s lives, have created what they call a 'Coastal Risk Screening Tool.'

The tool is essentially an interactive map which demonstrates exactly how and where the world's coastlines will be altered in the coming years. 

The sea-level rise and coastal flood maps are based on peer-reviewed science in leading journals. 

The parameters of the map can be altered by year, water level, temperature, ice sheet melting levels and elevation dataset.

Areas lower than the selected water level and with an unobstructed path to the ocean are shaded red, which researchers say "makes it easy to map any scenario quickly and reflects threats from permanent future sea-level rise well." 

Europe

A glance at Europe's projected coastline in the year 2050 shows that the low-lying nations of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark with the most widespread shades of red. 

Projected water level rises in central Europe by 2050. Picture: Climate Central
Projected water level rises in central Europe by 2050. Picture: Climate Central

The North East of England also looks to be affected.

Ireland

In an Irish context, Cork, Limerick, Galway, Wexford, Dublin and parts of Clare and Kerry look set to undergo the most substantial changes.

Dublin will likely be the city and county with the most addresses exposed to rising sea levels, though Cork and Limerick will also be significantly impacted.

A projected look at Limerick and Clare.
A projected look at Limerick and Clare.

Cork

Several Cork towns and villages including Youghal, Kinsale, Shanagarry, Ballycotton and Timoleague display major topographical changes. 

East Cork and Waterford.
East Cork and Waterford.

In Cork city too, the projections make anxious viewing. 

By 2050, the River Lee has expanded considerably, leaving most of the city centre, the marina, the docklands and Tivoli coloured red. 

Slightly further afield, the map shows much of Blackrock, Jacob's Island, Rochestown and Douglas overtaken by rising waters.

Cork city by 2050. Picture: Climate Central
Cork city by 2050. Picture: Climate Central

The default results of Climate Central's map (cited above) are based on a global temperature rise of roughly two degrees, but the map can also be adjusted to show the effects of a more pessimistic and severe temperature rise of up to 5 degrees.

While the map itself does not account for factors such as the frequency or intensity of future storm events, erosion, inland flooding, river expansion and increased flood defences, it does make it clear that if more is not done to combat climate change, Ireland will be irrevocably changed by the middle of the century.

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